Monday, February 21, 2011

Better Weather and a Better Volt Warranty! No Fair!!

Rumor has it that GM is working on a modified (improved?) Chevy Volt to be delivered in the Golden State no later than 2013. Many Californian Volt fans were no doubt disappointed when in October the California Air Resources Board tagged the Volt as an ULEV or Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle. Why would one be upset with a car being labeled ULEV? Well, because in California ULEV is soooooo 20th century. All three of the following ratings are ranked higher than the Volts current status.

It seems the sole reason GM's vehicle is in the fourth spot and not the first is an extra 2 years or 50,000 miles of warranty. Your guess is as good as mine as to how a couple years of warranty can make a car greener. Perhaps they feel a vehicle with a weaker warranty will hit the junk yard quicker, thus making it not worth taxpayers money. Regardless, it's that states near bankrupt government handing out the checks so I guess they get to call the shots.

As soon as GM decides to offer the Volt with a 10 year or 150,000 mile warranty it will officially be designated as an AT-PZEV qualifying for an extra 5,000 dollar California state rebate. This is in addition to the federal rebate of 7,500 dollars, potentially bringing the Volts price down into the high 20's. The current warranty backs the electric drive, battery and battery components with an 8 year or 100,000 mile warranty.

Let's just hope the rest of the union won't be having to subsidize this deal. Fingers crossed.

Rashiid, I have a feeling that the only modification needed will pricing in 20% replacement battery packs instead of 10%. Some of the packs are going to fail and GM has priced that into the MSRP at $41,300. Instead of reducing the price $2000 next year the price will drop $1500, instead. Just my guess, but it doesn't seem like we would need Nasaman to figure this one out.(Very clumsy joke about this not being as difficult as rocket science...);-)Ziv

Thanks for maintaining the 'lifeboat,' so to speak. Not sure if Lyle's mighty ship is gonna get steered onto the rocks, at this point (though we remain hopeful). If the worst happens, the gm-volt survivors will need this space to regroup.

If I do keep this up I'll most likely be moving to Wordpress like GM-Volt. I love the +1's -1's as much as everyone else does..

Also, if I keep it up, which I think I'll do if GM-Volt doesn't get it's own blogger. I'll need a real domain, maybe in a month or two. Any suggestions? I think "TheChevyVoltBlog.com" is a bit too long, TheVoltBlog.com is available, whattaya think?

Don't get ahead of things, is my advice. What name you choose may have a lot more to do with what happens at gm-volt. For example, it might be all about the displaced community (if worse comes to worst), and you might want to use "VoltNation.com" (for example).

Other names might also turn out to be more appropriate in light of events we cannot foresee.

A bill is being introduced in the Washington State Senate to impose a special fee to offset the loss of gas tax revenue from EVs.

Per the Seattle Times

"....Senate Bill 5251 would require electric-car owners to pay the $100 fee, in addition to any other required fees and taxes, when the vehicle is first registered, and when the registration is renewed.

In comparison, the Washington Department of Transportation estimates someone who drives a gasoline-powered car 12,000 miles per year pays an average $204 in state gas taxes. The state gas tax is 37.5 cents per gallon."

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